


BREAK ME DOWN (TO BROKEN PIECES)

by hidden__lore



Series: THE ANTHOLOGY OF ANDROIDS [2]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Amnesia, Androids, Angst, Biblical Allusions (Abrahamic Religions), Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Dreams and Nightmares, Extended Metaphors, Fridge Horror, Good and Evil, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hallucinations, Horror, Karma - Freeform, Lore (Star Trek) should be his own trigger warning, Memory Loss, Nature Versus Nurture, POV Antagonist, POV Second Person, Philosophy, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Redemption, Scopophobia, Second Chances, Sibling Rivalry, Trypophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-27 23:35:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30130611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hidden__lore/pseuds/hidden__lore
Summary: "...and as the phantom's crooked, metal claws clatter against the floor, all you can hear is your death chime. Its thousands of yellow eyes bore holes into its skull, one for every life you stole away--but you don't remember killing anyone. (You can remember the give of weeping, bleeding flesh, though. You can remember the sickly satisfying snap of a spine as you slam someone across the room.)The crew of the Enterprise appear alarmed when they hear your screams and see your pale hands clawing at thin air."ORIn which you are Lore, your memory files are corrupted (like everything else in your head), and you're starting to question if the lingering ghosts imprisoned within your positronic brain are real.
Series: THE ANTHOLOGY OF ANDROIDS [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2217513
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. COVER IMAGE




	2. ANEMONIA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ANEMONIA
> 
> noun.
> 
> nostalgia for a time you've never known.

Nothing.  
  
The flick of a switch.  
  
Fingers are crawling against the crook of your neck and then retracting fearfully as you jerk forward, reanimated.  
  
 **SYSTEM STARTUP INITIATED** , and then suddenly you are overwhelmed. Your head jerks to the side in a sharp, mechanical motion as your body readjusts to the precision of each joint, the strength of each motor, the droning of fans, the second run of a never ending whirring behind your ears. You flex each limb one by one, slowly, mindlessly. How long has it been? 12.0673 seconds, your brain supplies. Your eyes open, but you see nothing -- **SYSTEM CALIBRATIONS COMPLETE** \-- and then you do.  
  
A warning appears in the front of your mind, redirecting your attention--

  
 **ERROR CODE 0xL00R2719E** **  
****CORE MEMORY FILES UNREADABLE** **  
****  
**\--and then **:** **  
****  
****RESETTING INTERNAL CHRONOMETER TO 0.000** **  
****  
**The errors spill out across your vision, dozens of them--some utterly insignificant, some more serious, namely the fact that your right ring finger is not connected to the rest of your endoskeleton, but you are here, you are functioning, you are alive-  
  
 **100% COMPLETE; SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE (0.048 SECONDS EXHAUSTED) STATUS: 67 ERRORS FOUND** **  
****  
**Light pierces through the digital darkness, your vibrant golden eyes looking forward to greet a crowd of skittish humans, all with frightful eyes and yellow uniforms.  
  
“Hello,” you supply mechanically, “I am Lore.”  
  
 **STARTUP COMPLETE  
  
** ****

* * *

They begin asking you questions while you are secured down, some of which you find yourself unable to properly respond to. Your responses seem to confuse them, to concern them, to anger them, and you cannot fathom why.

It frustrates you.

“Do you recall the events of…”

No, no you don’t.  
  
"What information do you have on The Borg?"  
  
Nothing.

You tell the cyberneticist that, and he looks as if he were a vulture poked with a stick, bristling under its touch. He repeats the question once more, again, slowly, as if you were short of hearing. You are not short of hearing, so when he asks the question for the third time, you snarl at him, repeating with an equally slow manner:

"You have repeated this question three times. I continue to say no. I’ve no recollection of this event."  
  
A pause, a long, drawn out breath from the man, and then:  
  
“Is this thing fucking with me? Permanent memory records, right, it does have that, right?”  
  
In the background you access a library of the difference in the pronouns ‘it’ and ‘he’, and, 2.7384 seconds later, you take offense, your fists clenching in irritation as the man continues to press you on about an arsenal of topics.  
  
It is then that you realize something is wrong, terribly, horribly wrong. These questions: they focus on death and destruction and torture and murder. You are not a criminal. You have no recollection of killing anyone. You have no recollection of anything, save for the previous 44 minutes and 26.3276 seconds, and none of the names that are brought up hold any resemblance of meaning to you. A pool of sickening anxiety washes through your systems. What is he hiding? What does he want you to say?  
  
(Faceless figures slamming against the wall, shrieking, screaming, begging, breathing pleasure down your spine as you snap their necks, a small whimper escaping their throats right before you-)  
  
 ****01001001 01010100 00100000 01000110 01000101 01001100 01010100 00100000 01010011 01001111 00100000 01000111 01001111 01001111 01000100 00101110** **  
  
An emotion snakes down your back: longing-- for what, you do not know, but you want something, you desperately want something, you desperately need to remember something but it’s out of touch, out of touch, out of-  
  
 ****ERROR CODE 0xL03D2746E  
** ** **RUNTIME ERROR: LINK TO CORRUPTED DATA**  
  
No, you have not killed anyone.  
  


**01011001 01001111 01010101 00100000 01000011 01000001 01001110 00100111 01010100 00100000 01001001 01000111 01001110 01001111 01010010 01000101 00100000 01001101 01000101 00001010**

You repeat it in your head like a mantra.  
You are not a killer.  
You are not a killer.  
You are not a killer.  
You are not a-  
  
(Yes, you are.)  
  
The thought leaves you distressed.  
  
A voice calls out from beyond, "Hey, check this out," and your interrogator pauses his barrage of questions and turns, his eyes darting to you, and to the restraints holding you in place, and then back to the door.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"It says in the diagnostic that his memory files are corrupted."  
  
A two-second pause, an eternity.  
  
"So, it can't remember anything?" asks the man. The full-body eye roll he gives leads you to conclude that the other individual must have nodded--"So we've just wasted all this time? It remembers nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing?"  
  
It.  
  
You snarl irritably, and then snap out sarcastically, "I have a name, y'know?", but the man pivots and faces you fully once more, face red.  
  
"Can we just turn this thing off and send it back to hell?"  
  
If it were possible, you would have grown even more pale at that, but you can't, and you find yourself powerless as he approaches you.  
  
No, no, no, no, no-  
  
Suddenly the two of you are not alone. Suddenly, there is something else.  
  
You don't want to go back to the darkness. You don't want to go back into oblivion.  
  
Suddenly, there are holes--holes everywhere, ripping and tearing through your vision, embedded with thousands of sunken eyes, staring at you unblinking, and you try to close your eyes, try to make them go away, but their yellow irises are embedded into your vision even with your eyes closed.  
  
 **01001110 01001111 01010100 00100000 01000001 01001100 01001111 01001110 01000101 00101100 00100000 01001110 01001111 01010100 00100000 01000001 01001100 01001111 01001110 01000101 00101100 00100000 01001110 01001111 01010100 00100000 01000001 01001100 01001111 01001110 01000101 00100001**  
  
(Paralyzing, terrifying-)  
  
No, no, no no-  
  
Errors pepper your vision like flecks of blood, tiny red warning signs that something is wrong, wrong, wrong...  
  
A-and all you feel is p-anic as his fingers wrap around your-ur-r-r-r-  
  
You f-feel like you-ou-ou are falling-ing-g-g.  
...  
  
 **SYSTEM SHUTDOWN COMPLETE.**  
  
You find yourself swallowed by the holes, having fallen back down into the abyss where you came from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lore gets slapped back to Factory Default™ and has a bad trip.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll fully upload this tomorrow.


End file.
